New Exhibit Celebrates Albert Kahn’s Life and Accomplishments

SHARI S. COHEN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

The Albert Kahn Legacy Foundation has created its initial exhibit celebrating the work of Albert Kahn, the world’s foremost industrial architect of the first half of the 20th century. Titled “Albert Kahn: Creating the Modern World,” it is on public display at the Fisher Building in Detroit through Sept. 30. While the Fisher Building is probably his most admired local structure, Kahn’s firm designed and engineered approximately 20,000 projects throughout his lifetime.

These included hundreds of projects for the Ford Motor Company including the Ford Plant in Highland Park and the Rouge Complex. Kahn and his brother, Julius, an engineer, created open, lightfilled factories that were more comfortable for workers and more efficient than other manufacturing facilities of the early 20th century.

But the scope of his work extended beyond industrial buildings. Locally, many of Kahn’s building are well known: Temple Beth El, built on Woodward near Mack in 1905; Hill Auditorium and other buildings on the University of Michigan campus; the Detroit Athletic Club; and the Edsel Ford House.

Kahn was a first-generation German Jew whose formal education ended at the seventh grade. He was a selftaught artist and draftsman who apprenticed at a Detroit architectural firm where he quickly mastered the field.

Kahn, who lived from 1869-1942, has several descendants in the Detroit area. His oldest child, the late Lydia Winston Malbin, was an internationally recognized collector of contemporary art. According to one local relative, Kahn often took Malbin’s daughter, Sarah (Sally) Robinson, for Sunday drives around Detroit while listening to the opera. Robinson, 96, who lives in Vermont and Florida, is an artist and her late husband was an architect.

There are no Kahn descendants currently working at Albert Kahn Associates Inc., which has its headquarters in the Fisher Building. However, one great-grandson is on the board of the Albert Kahn Legacy Foundation, which was established last year to honor Kahn for his innovations and global impact.

The current exhibit is part of the Detroit Month of Design program — a citywide event that celebrates Detroit’s role as a UNESCO City of Design. The Kahn Legacy Foundation is developing a larger exhibit for the Detroit Historical Museum next year. For more information, visit AlbertKahnLegacy.org.

THE ALBERT KAHN LEGACY FOUNDATION. DESIGNER: ERIC KELLER

LEFT TO RIGHT: Albert Kahn’s legacy includes such innovative buildings as the Ford River Rouge Glass

Ernst & Young LLP named CEO Jason Raznick of Benzinga an Entrepreneur of the Year 2021 Michigan and Northwest Ohio Award winner. The award recognizes entrepreneurial leaders excelling in talent management; degree of difficulty; financial performance; societal impact and building a values-based company; and originality, innovation and future plans. Raznick was selected by an independent panel of judges, and the award was announced during the program’s virtual awards gala on Aug. 5.

“Benzinga was founded with the mission to democratize financial news,” Raznick said. “For too long, Wall Street has had an unfair advantage over main street by accessing data and information before smaller investors. Benzinga’s core mission is to bring easier-to-consume news to retail traders, in order to even the playing field between main street and Wall Street. While it is a great honor to be announced as an EY Entrepreneur of the Year winner, this is not an individual award, but a team award and a testament to all of the hard work by our team members.”

Benzinga, a financial media and technology company that empowers individual investors, was recognized as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States in the Inc. 5000, a list of 5,000 emerging private companies in the U.S. This marks the first time that Benzinga, one of just 80 Michigan-based companies to appear on the list, has been featured.